Such is their
perseverance in an evil course: they themselves call it honour.
Slaves of this class, they exchange away in commerce, to free themselves
too from the shame of such a victory. Of their other slaves they make not
such use as we do of ours, by distributing amongst them the several
offices and employments of the family. Each of them has a dwelling of his
own, each a household to govern. His lord uses him like a tenant, and
obliges him to pay a quantity of grain, or of cattle, or of cloth. Thus
far only the subserviency of the slave extends. All the other duties in a
family, not the slaves, but the wives and children discharge. To inflict
stripes upon a slave, or to put him in chains, or to doom him to severe
labour, are things rarely seen. To kill them they sometimes are wont, not
through correction or government, but in heat and rage, as they would an
enemy, save that no vengeance or penalty follows. The freedmen very little
surpass the slaves, rarely are of moment in the house; in the community
never, excepting only such nations where arbitrary dominion prevails. For
there they bear higher sway than the free-born, nay, higher than the
nobles.
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